In a devastating week for Myanmar's democracy movement, dozens of its members have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, as the military-ruled government locks away writers and Buddhist monks -- as well as musicians, a poet and at least one journalist.

Myanmar's junta said Friday that hundreds of Buddhist monks were detained during its crackdown on pro-democracy activists and that it was hunting for four more clerics it described as ringleaders of the uprising.

Authorities on Wednesday released a prominent Myanmar reporter for the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun after six days in detention, but there were reports that other journalists remained missing after a government crackdown on protests.

Soldiers announced they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Burma's largest city Wednesday and the top U.S. diplomat in the country said she heard that military police were pulling people out of their homes during the night.

A U.N. envoy remained tightlipped Wednesday about his meetings with Myanmar's junta chief and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, a highly watched mission that followed the regime's deadly crackdown on democracy protesters.

About 1,500 Buddhist monks marched through downtown streets Friday in their biggest march yet in Myanmar's biggest city since the start of a month-long wave of protests against the military government.

Nearly 1,000 Buddhist monks, joined by thousands of their countrymen, marched in Myanmar's largest city Thursday in the biggest challenge in at least a decade to the iron-fisted junta, a show of strength rare under military rule.